


The Orange Rose

by ungoodpirate



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, there are knights and ladies and lords but it is not historically accurate at all.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 05:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3316238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Some were fighting for her wealth. Others for her beauty. There was even a philosopher who had commissioned knight to fight for her brain. But who was there to fight for Lydia’s heart?"</p><p>In which there is a tournament held for Lady Lydia's hand in marriage, Allison is a lady-knight who enters and wins and has one of those moments were she pulls off her helmet and her hairs unravels and everyone is shocked and awed that the knight is a woman, and professions of love are made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Orange Rose

Some were fighting for her wealth. Others for her beauty. There was even a philosopher who had commissioned knight to fight for her brain. But who was there to fight for Lydia’s heart?

“The heart’s foolish,” her mother said this morning. Mother’s voice was sharp, but her hands gentle as she laid Lydia’s freshly made curls over her shoulder. Mother leaned down and kissed the crown of Lydia’s head.

Why would the Lady of Martin Estate be a romantic? She married for love and ended up with a husband turned traitor now fled from this land. Only by wit and charm did she keep herself and her daughter from destitution after this blow landed. One of these designs was the betrothal of Lydia to the Whittemore’s son, Lord Jackson.

Lydia grew up with her betrothed as her often comrade and found Jackson satisfying in demeanor and talent. However, over now a full four seasons ago, had the Whittemore’s moved across the sea to look for a cure to a strange illness that had befallen their son. Latest news was that they didn’t plan to return.

Lady Natalie had organized a contest for Lydia’s hand in marriage. It was an old sort of ritual, falling out of fashion when marrying for status was more appropriate. But no family of good standing wanted anything to do with the Martin women and their rumors of deception and witchery. But noble families in more dire straits then them, merchant families aching for improvement in their standing, and peasant boys with poet songs for the unmarried lady of the Martin Estate were all interested in the chance they otherwise wouldn’t have had.

The trumpeters sounded and the ladies were announced. They entered their stand at the head of the wooden bleachers erected around the tournament field. Lydia hadn’t had silence to pursue her studies for weeks as they were being built.

For once in her life, Lydia didn’t love all the admiring eyes upon her.  She took seat in a carved wooden chair with a velvet cushion and gripped tight the arms.

“Smile, darling,” Mother hissed when she took the slighter grander chair beside Lydia.

The local magistrate who shared their booth announced the rules and procedure to the crowd already excited  with ale. At the end, Lady Natalie stood and the crowded quieted in a way it hadn’t for the willow-y, dark-garbed magistrate. Of course, Lady Natalie had more power and more beauty.

“Let’s us begin,” she said with theater smile. The crowd roared.

…

The tournament was dully long for Lydia, even as her fate played out before her in the mud. She only had the patience for such displays when she had someone to root for. Before that was only Jackson; now she wanted them all to disarm each other and the farce to be proclaimed a draw at the end.

The peasant boys, untrained and ill-equipped, were the first to lose the duels. But as the mass of contestants slowly whittled down, the competition gets more aggressive. One would think, after hours of it, the crowd would tire, but instead they only got louder.

Upon afternoon, they were down to two. The first was a large, rough-looking man. Mother whispered to Lydia how he was commissioned to fight by a local baron.

“And the other?” Lydia asked of the second final contestant. A knight, she referred to him in her head, for he was wearing a helmet and a breastplate and seemed certain with a sword. The knight was slim and not of great height, perhaps a boy still growing into a man.

“I’m not sure,” Lady Natalie said, which meant she didn’t know at all. She shared a whispered conversation with the magistrate, but no one had an answer.

…

The duel was surprisingly quick, with the nameless knight outmaneuvering the larger man with the graceful speed and sure-footing, almost like a dancer’s. He had got behind the baron’s man, knocking him off his feet with blows to his ankles and knees, and then disarming him. The crowd roared, for none of them expected this outcome.

Lydia was deaf to it. This was it, her life decided, and she with no hand in it.

The knight was announced the victor and called to stand before the Martin ladies’ booth. With cheer, the magistrate called for the victor to reveal himself. The unknown knight pulled off his helmet, releasing a cascade of curly dark hair. Lydia’s mother gasped beside her, but Lydia could find no breath.

The unknown knight was Allison.

While it was known that the Argent family taught its daughters the hunt along with its sons, this was beyond expectation.

Lydia’s mother stood and the rambling, cheering, jeering crowd hushed.

“Knight,” she calls down, although it’s always been ‘young Lady Allison’ with a smile whenever she had been in attendance of Martin Hall as Lydia’s friend. “Who do you fight for?”

 Allison bowed like a man – she wore no skirt to curtsey with – and faced Lydia’s platform. She missed no beat as she spoke. “Grande Lady Martin, Mistress of this homestead, I say to you… I fight for myself.”

The arena of guests exploded again in chatter and others in shouts of indignation. Lydia’s mother motioned with barely a flick of her hand and the trumpeters make a shout on their horns to silence the crowd.

“And what do you intend to gain from this victory?” Lydia’s mother asked.

“What was promised,” Allison said. Her gaze slide over to Lydia and their eyes connect. Lightening zapped down Lydia’s spine.

Since the Argent family had moved onto adjacent lands five years ago, the two of them had confided in each other all manner of secrets and growing pains. They had shared private picnics along the glens and nights in each other’s rooms. It was seen as the common acts of almost-women-girls sharing confidence. They had held hands during garden walks. Lydia has woven flowers into Allison’s hair and Allison has kissed Lydia upon the cheek. Lydia hadn’t thought they could be anything more than what they were, although Allison was the person who made her happiest.  

…

“Why did you do this?” Lydia said. The crowd barred on the grounds where they continued in their revelry, her voice is loud in the echo-y entrance hall, being clear and heard for the first time today.

Allison, sword sheaved on her belt and helmet crooked under one arm, said to her, “Because my heart demanded it.”

Lydia wasn’t often cut off from words, but today she sliced-at-the-knee silenced.

“Allison,” she heaved, the name like honey, but too much of it.

Allison said, “I would not see you taken away by any man without you having some choice.”

Lydia could throw her arms around her friend, pull her into an all-emotion embrace if it were the place to do so. Yet, things were still unresolved. The peace of Allison here was only a break in the storm.

Instead, Lydia looked at her. The shape of her armor, upon inspection, was clearly made for Allison, for a woman. It wouldn't have even looked right on a squire boy, as Lydia had supposed her, if anyone would spend so much care for a squire. The breastplate had the Argent family chest embossed on it, hard to see if you weren't up close and looking for it.

Flyaway hairs stuck to Allison forehead’s drying sweat. There was no powder or rogue on her face other than smudged dirt. But it was Allison's face and there was nothing bitter about looking upon it.

"You're filthy," Lydia said.

With a poet's ear, Allison understood her friend's cadence, and knew this was not meant ill-willed.

Lydia pulled a handkerchief from her bodice and handed it over. "Here."

 Allison took it with delicate fingers and grinned. "Never has a lady leant me her handkerchief before."

 "That's because you too are a lady and you have your own," Lydia snapped back. "And I have a hundred. Wipe your brow."

 Allison followed Lydia's instructions. It hardly made her clean but it took away the worst.

 “What’re they doing in there?” Allison asks, looking at the closed doors of the great hall.

“Probably seeing what grounds they have against you,” Lydia said darkly. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Mother has called the magistrate and her legal advisor.”

Allison tsked. “The magistrate declared me the winner himself.”

“What’s your plan?” Lydia asked, but then one of the double doors opened and the advisor asked Allison in. Lydia followed without summons, staring down the advisor, just daring him to turn her away.

“Lydia –” Her mother started in protest.

“I will be here,” Lydia said, chin up and still shorter than everyone in the room.

“And I would have her here.” Allison placed her hand on Lydia’s shoulder.

Lady Natalie’s mouth pinched shut. “Fine then,” she said. “Lydia, come sit.”

With stone feet Lydia crossed the room to take the seat by her mother’s side, leaving Allison behind. The advisor stood at the now reclosed door. The magistrate sat on the Lady Martin’s other side. Allison was not invited to take a place.

“Now… the business at hand.” Mother rubbed her hands down the velvet of her dress as though that’s all this matter is to her, something to be wiped away.

“What has been decided?” Allison said, gaze going between Lady Martin and the magistrate.

“First we ask, what was your intention joining the tournament,” the magistrate said, leaning back in his chair in a way much too comfortable for Lydia’s taste.

“I’ve made myself clear on this manner already,” Allison said, then repeated with double force, “What has been decided?”

When no one answered, Lydia spoke up from her chair. “Sir Magistrate, I’m sure it would out of line to not reveal the legalities of this situation to one of the parties involved.”

Mother cast a sour look at Lydia, but the gray-haired magistrate sat up his chair. “Lady Argent is not in breach of any rules of the tournament, and is the rightful winner, as out of line with propriety it is.”

Lydia may’ve been the only one in the room to catch Allison’s eye roll, and the little reaction was enough to make Lydia smile.

“Obviously,” the magistrate bored on, “The two of you can’t not be wed under the law. But as the tournament can be won by proxy for another, and as it was purposefully opened for all, there was nothing forbidding a woman for entering a place and winning.”

“Now what is your intention?” Lady Natalie demanded. “Because as far as I can figure, if you were not so concerned with proving your prowess to care that you led my household into a farce… I think it’s that you aim to trade the rights to my daughter’s hand for your own fortune.”

“That is not my intent at all. My intention is to give the Lady my right over her hand to her ownself, so that any decisions to wed or not wed are solely in her power.”

Quite a declaration stunned the room in its selflessness. Except for Lydia, who had expected nothing but virtue from her friend. But still, it clogged her throat more than any winter-born cold could, to hear it declared.                

Lady Natalie sat back in her chair. “Well, as kind-hearted as the gesture is, this was larger than a wedding.”

“I know,” Allison said.

“You know?”

“Lady Lydia confided in me.”

Mother shot Lydia another look, for their strength had always been set in keeping secrets and playing the right political games. Lydia stared back, and pronounced, “I did.” She regretted nothing of her secret-giving to Allison.             

“Lady Martin, I know you are looking at me now like a villain. You are so desperate for an ally you have decided to try and trap one through marriage, whoever they may be.”

“How dare you –”

“She’s right, Mother,” Lydia interrupted.

“You are desperate for an ally, but you fail to look out your own window. Our families have been nothing by comrades with each other and I wish to extend that here.”

Mother huffed, too stubborn to be accepting of the truth. Yet she had not banished Allison from her presence. Although legally, Allison was within her rights to win the tournament, surely with an appropriate bribe the magistrate could retract that decision, and Lady Natalie could settle on the runner up.  

“I know the truth of your situation,” Allison. “I know that you cling to this property by exception of the law after the acts of your traitorous husband. That you only save it by declaring it had already been promised as a dowry gift to the Whittemore’s. And now, that it can be taken away unless it goes to another’s name, like would happen if Lydia was thusly married.

"What you have schemed for, I offer here freely," Allison said. From the grim set of Mother's mouth, her disapproval and disbelief are evident. "I offer, that is, an alliance. I propose the merging of our estates."

 "We should call your father now, child," the magistrate said. "He will sort out the dizziness in your head."

 "My father departed on a tour of mourning a fortnight ago. Nevertheless, I have been acting as the executor of the Argent estate since my mother's passing."

"Fine, then," the magistrate sighed. "Keep speaking your silliness, if the good Lady Martin will hear it."

"What are your plans, then, Lady Allison?" Lydia asked of her, though as Allison unintentionally pointed out, it’s properly now Lady Argent. She is the Lady of the Argent Estate. While men have busied themselves with war and politics outside of their homes, women have always made sure the household was run just, accounting for every servant and count of gold that it took.

As everyone around her had bickered, Lydia cared for only one in the room. For Allison, for her dark eyes and her strong-will that refused to be cowed. Even Lydia, who had a biting wit and wicked brain, bent often to fit into what duty demanded of her. There was a power in playing the dutiful flower of a girl, for then men trust you and want you and underestimate you as you smile your way into secret control. Allison defied this outright, standing in this room, in her armor, refusing to retreat.

 "I mean then," Allison said, voice the softest since she entered this room, as she answered Lydia's question. Allison had no need to be harsh and demanding to Lydia, her confidant, the lone person in this room already allied with her. "I mean now that as what would happen in marriage, we combine the Martin and Argent estates into one. These are the lands owed to Lady Lydia and I, the only heirs of our family names. While yours will be stricken from you, fair lady, if you do not marry, mine cannot be stricken from me for I have no debt. So I offer here to purchase Martin Estate, and have you, Lady Martin, to maintain its affairs. And we then, Argent and Martin, shall share in the profits and the troubles of these lands together." 

Lady Natalie dared to look intrigued openly. As she had oft taught her daughter, it was best to hide eagerness – it was a weakness of strategy.

“And why would you do this?” she asked.

“I can give answers that would appease your sense of logic. That it’s a growth in my family’s wealth. That is a trade that shows to my father and grandfather that I have shrewdness and will beget them with trusting in me more. But I will tell you the actual truth. My truth. That I would not see Lydia traded like a coin for your or her own security. I do love her. And if the law did allow it, I would ask her to be my bride.” And though Allison addressed Lady Martin as was necessary, she looked to Lydia as she finished, her voice dropping to a certain place that makes it feel that it was just them conversing.

The magistrate snorted, ruining this moment. “She thinks she’s a man,” he said with derision, seeming to forget that he was among his betters.

“I do not pretend to think I’m a man,” Allison retorted. “I just possess broad beliefs in what a woman can be.”

Lady Martin was similarly uninterested in the magistrate now. “You’re dismissed,” she said to him shortly. The magistrate was so shocked he flubbed through his next aborted sentences and the advisor then made it his unprompted mission to escort the magistrate out of the room, reminding him that he was still being paid and that there was party going on outside at the now ended tournament.

Lady Martin invited Allison to sit in the magistrate’s now vacated chair.

“I’m a smart woman,” she started.

“I know you are, my lady,” Allison interjected. For a first time since this turn of events, a small upward turn of her lips showed on her face. It was obvious flattery, and everyone left in the room was aware, but it lifted the veil of tension.

“I have lived my life under a certain set of rules,” Lady Martin said. “No matter how smart I was, or how wealthy, or how much respect my position demanded… all of it has and can be supplanted by the whims of men. And here you have proposed a deal that removes all three of us from that complication.”

“I suppose I have.”

“Because you love my daughter.”

“With all my heart,” Allison said.

Lady Martin blinked slowly as she contemplated this. She looked to Lydia then back to Allison.

“And what if my daughter doesn’t return your affections?”

Allison leaned forward to catch Lydia’s eye. “To Lydia, I will give you my love if you would have. If not, then I wish you no curse, now or ever. But I would only beg for your continued friendship.”

“Allison,” Lydia started, feeling like she was performing a proper imitation of a fish as she gaped against her own confusion and trying to puzzle out the proper assortment of words to explain.

If yesterday someone had inquired after her love for Lady Allison, Lydia would have boldly proclaimed her heart for her greatest and most tender friend. _Friend_.

But that didn’t mean only friend, perhaps. She had always thought she had to save her heart, cage it up for a man she would be wed to, and learn to love him, as was instructed of ladies of her class. This, a love outside of appointed marriage, and with another woman – Lydia’s heart raced in an unfamiliar patter, less nerves and more… anticipation?

“I have only one question for you, daughter,” her mother said, taking over Lydia’s silence. “Do you trust her?”

Lydia nodded. “I do. I do.” For this there was no question. “With all my heart.”

“Then it’s settled,” Lady Natalie said. “We shall begin to draw up the contract. Dear Lady Allison, it’s already evening. I insist you stay here tonight.”

…

Lydia grew her robe tighter across her front as she crept down the hall. Sleep had evaded her even after such an emotionally wearing day. The floors were cold and the halls dim light, but she knew the path, coming to the nearest guest bedroom door and knocking.

“Lydia?” Allison asked, voice croaky from sleep, when she opened the door.

Lydia let out held breathe. “Hello.”

“Hello?” Allison replied, tucking a sleep-mused strand of hair behind her ear.

Lydia pinched her lips then said, “We haven’t had a chance to speak since… all this.”

“No, we haven’t.” Allison had been excused to clean up and rest after the tournament, returned for a stately dinner, and then off again, exhausted from the fighting.

“I don’t have an answer,” Lydia said, something that had been pressing upon her to say, although now it sounded so little.

“Sorry?”

“Earlier,” Lydia said, twisting her fingers tighter along her robe’s edges. “You professed your love, and I said nothing. It was because I don’t have an answer.”

Allison’s mouth turned into a small smile but her eyes remained flat and unchanged. “It’s all right. I knew when I admitted it there be small chance to hear it back, especially in the way or amount I meant.”

“I said I didn’t have an answer,” Lydia retorted. “Not that I didn’t –” A frustrated air exhaled from her mouth as didn’t conclude, ‘not that I didn’t love you.’

Allison took Lydia’s worrying hand in her own, gave it a comforting hold, raised it to her lips, and brushed a kiss upon the knuckles.

“I’ll be here,” she said. “Anyway you’ll have me.”

They wished each other a good night, and Lydia returned to bedroom, no less untroubled and hindered from entering dreamland.

…

The long work of combing their estates took the next several days. There were always multiple people about: mother and her advisor, Allison and hers, and servants of course. Lydia, being profoundly skilled with numbers, was set to the task of reviewing the financials. It made it easy to speak to Allison when there were plenty people about and it was about business matters.

Once the matters have all been signed and sealed, Mother called Lydia into the privacy of her study.

“Now that it is assured that we won’t go homeless, we can talk about other matters,” Lady Natalie said, standing over the fireplace, face cast with its glow.

“What other matters?” Lydia questioned.

“Matters between a mother and daughter,” she said, voice lighter. She turned to Lydia, brow inquisitive, but not in a sharp or scowling way. “Do you care for Allison?”

“I care for her greatly,” Lydia replied.

“They same way she cares for you?” Lady Natalie asked, and when Lydia didn’t reply, she continued. “I don’t intend it as a trick question. Or a judgmental one. But as a mother, curious to the wanderings of her daughter’s heart.”

“I care for Allison,” Lydia said, “More than I have ever cared for anyone.” Of this, at least, she was sure.

“Did I ever tell you about your grandmother?” she asked. “And about her lover.”

Lydia’s eyes widened, because no. No, her mother hadn’t, because proper young ladies didn’t openly speak of such dalliances, and Lydia was just coming into her womanhood.

“It was another woman,” Lady Natalie said. “And they were very happy, for the time they had together. Which  is all for me to tell you that even though Allison’s pronouncement was more… _bold_ than is to be expected, it’s not unheard of, that is, secret loves between two women or two men.”

A strange feeling overcame Lydia all sudden, like being crashed into my an ocean wave. She was trying to parse it out when mother set a hand to her cheek and said, “Now that we… you… are free from obligation, I do not seek to push your heart in any direction. But I also do not seek to cage it.”

…

After this talk, Lydia set herself to a walk about the grounds. The air was fresh today and the sky clear. Even young, Lydia had been acknowledged for her intellect, so she was sure her brain could solve her internal quandaries, if she gave herself time and set herself to it.

She rounded the corner and spotted Allison leaned over a garden bush, cutting a bloom from the vine. With a small knife, she began to strip away the thorns from the stem.

Allison wore a simple navy dress with fleur-de-lie patterns embroidered upon the front and cuffs in stark white thread. Her curls were pinned back from her face, but were loose upon her shoulders. From a distance, Lydia was struck by how beautiful Allison was with her defined jaw and gleaming eyes. Every movement was so sure and steady like the hunter and warrior she was. Of course, Lydia had seen her friend as lovely before. There was no denying such a truth. But there was seeing someone as beautiful and being overwhelmed with how beautiful they were to you.

Done with her work, Allison glanced up, spotted Lydia and smiled. It was as if someone had laced Lydia's bodice too tight.

Allison approached upon the stone-laid path and Lydia forced her feet to move. Upon meeting halfway, Allison held out the rose. "For you."

Lydia accepted it with careful hands, cupping it like it was the most delicate intricacy or a newborn child. She admired the orange of its petals, velvety against her fingertips.

Lydia astounded herself by her own wonder until she realized that it was who gave this gift that added to its value. She lifted the rose to her nose, watching Allison watch her do so. The garden was already filled with the floral scent of spring, but this particular flower had a sharp smell of clover.

"I've never seen orange roses except for in your garden," Allison said.

"We have a gardener who likes to experiment. This is the result of combining red and yellow roses."

"How does that work?"

"You'd have to ask him."

 Lydia brushed her fingers over the petals again, although she knew that’d only shorten their vibrancy.

"If red rose are for true love," Allison said. "And yellow for friendship... What does that make an orange rose for?"

"Guess I'll have to make it up," Lydia said.

"Oh?" Allison teased with a raised eyebrow.

Lydia tilted her head and smirked. "Well, they are in my garden."

What was the marriage between the two, red and yellow, lover and friend?

"Perhaps..." she started, but then shut herself up. She tried to imagine how this conversation would've gone with Jackson, though with time passed it was hard to recall the exact features of his face. Surely they wouldn't have gotten this far into the discussion; Lydia would've scoffed at him trying to present something to her from her own garden.

Despite their years of betrothal, she and Jackson had never shared the ease of presence nor the comfortable familiarity Lydia shared with Allison.  If, in the past, she had ascribed this to Allison being her dearest friend and closet confident, perhaps it had caused her to overlook a possibility – overlooked an emerging truth.

Lydia twirled the stem between her fingers, staring deeply in the splay of the petals. "Perhaps," she tried again, "Orange is for true love... discovered in friendship."

"Lydia..." Allison whispered, and Lydia's forced to catch her eye. When did they begin to stand so close? Not today, but in all their days. "I don't want you feel forced to give anything you don't want to give."

"I wouldn't," Lydia retorted sharp. "I thought you knew me better than that."

"I apologize," Allison said. "For I do."

Before any more hesitations or cautions could be heralded out, Lydia proclaimed, "Allison, I love you."

The imaginary bodice bounds were undone. The truth come out was a relief. To be allowed to feel things you hadn't know you were allowed to feel, and to acknowledge them and admit it was to be freed from bounds. What a blessing, to have love anointed upon your head.

Allison searched her face, looking for any trace of lie, of force, of uncertainty, but there was none. Lydia knew this for she knew it was true, what she just said. She loved Allison. It had been a mystery before only because she lacked certain factors to come to a proper conclusion. It was like a math puzzle, solving for the missing number. Before, too many factors had been missing. She had Allison, had the contentment and happiness Allison’s presence gave her, but hadn’t had the fact that it could be. That she could love in this arrangement, marriage-less and with a girl. But now, knowing, it was so obvious.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Allison said.

“You should,” Lydia replied, feeling her own blushing grin overtake her face.

And they did kiss, right there, amongst the roses.


End file.
